From our files - April 21

Leigh's proposed Xanadu snow centre could become a white elephant because of the number of rival ski centres being given the go-ahead, the Green Party claims.

They are calling for the project, near Pennington Flash country park, to be abandoned.

25 YEARS AGO From the Evening News April 21 1983.

A Bolton firm's biggest ever job went out through the factory doors today - and the jobs of the firm's workers went with it. The shipment marks the completion of a £300,000 order for a special type of ship-mounted crane by Greenhalgh Crane Services. It also marks the end of the company's existence.

50 YEARS AGO From the Evening News April 21 1958.

Making gunpowder and bombs was a hobby which fascinated a 13-year-old Bolton boy. On several occasions he took one of his home-made bombs to the nearby fields, lit the fuse and watched it blow up rubble or part of an old brick wall. Yesterday the boy told an Evening News reporter that he was not going to make any more bombs, and the reason was clear - a huge plaster across his nose, another on his forehead, and a black eye.

100 YEARS AGO From the Evening News April 21 1908.

Reuter's Shanghai correspondent reports that three hundred and fifty-nine opium dens in the foreign quarter of Shanghai have been selected by lot for closing.

The licensing of the opium public-houses in the settlement brings about £10,000 into the municipal treasury, and the dilatoriness of the Council in putting an immediate end to the traffic has been attributed to a desire to save the rates.